


Apples and Marshmallows

by onereyofstarlight



Series: Thunderbird Prompt/Request Fills [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereyofstarlight/pseuds/onereyofstarlight
Summary: John's not used to losing things and he lives alone, so he calls Virgil for help when he's suddenly starts losing track of his belongings.
Series: Thunderbird Prompt/Request Fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662397
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Apples and Marshmallows

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following prompt from Nutty
> 
> "Well you know who I’d like a story about. :D How about we team up John and Virg and the case of the missing marshmallows. Other brothers optional, but there has to be at least one apple and Eos has to butt her head in at least once :D"
> 
> Ahaha, I love it xD

The sun was by no means high in the sky when the insistent beeping in Virgil’s ear broke through his slumber, but the early haze of morning had been burnt off in the crisp southern sun. He groaned and rolled over, dragging linen sheets up and over his head, reaching out a hand to grope at the accept call notification that shone bright in his eyes.

“Someone had better be dying,” he growled into the comm, his eyes still squeezed tightly shut in denial of the day. “I swear John, if this is your god-awful circadian sleep cycle alarm, I _will_ revoke cheeseburger privileges on your supply lists.”

“Virgil,” hissed John. “Virgil, I need your help.”

That got his attention. He cracked one eye open and peered at the hologram through the sheet.

“Shit John,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow and pulling the comm closer so he could see his brother more clearly.

“John?” he said sharply when his brother didn’t respond. “What’s going on?”

“Okay, don’t panic,” said John, “but I think I need you up here, Virg. I’m either hallucinating, or maybe it’s my memory, but Virg, I can’t find the marshmallows.”

Virgil, who had leapt out of bed and was hurriedly pulling on a new pair of jeans at John’s words, paused. “The… marshmallows?” he replied weakly.

“You know the ones,” said John, the agitation evident on his face. “You sent them up last week, and I put them away and they’ve vanished.”

Virgil could already feel a headache developing behind his eyes. “John, when did you last get some sleep?”

“Two hours ago,” said John. He looked past Virgil at something beyond the holographic display and his holo drained of colour. “Virgil, I can hear _Gordon_.”

Virgil knew for a fact that whatever John was hearing, it was not their brother who had crashed on the couch immediately following their last mission, slept through a horror movie marathon, and more importantly, who Virgil could see at that very moment from his window, cheerfully chatting to someone on his own comm.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Johnny,” he said, hurrying down to the docking station where the space elevator was ready and waiting for him. “Tell EOS to put us in emergency shutdown until we get this sorted.”

***

John met him at the airlock. He was still looking pale and his eyes were slightly bloodshot as he floated in the microgravity. Virgil grimaced at the weightless feeling, the sensation automatically sending red alerts to his brain. It would never be the comfort to him that it was to John and it was a relief when his brother engaged the gravity ring.

“I may have overreacted,” said John sheepishly, leading him into the galley. “I mean, about the marshmallows that is.” He pressed on one of the walls and the pantry doors opened to reveal an decorated tin. He pulled it out and offered the homemade marshmallow to Virgil before replacing it in the pantry and shutting the door. “I swear I left these in my room, I can’t explain it.”

“Maybe you’re sleepwalking again?” suggested Virgil.

John huffed a laugh. “Have you seen the way I’m strapped to my bed at night? I guess it’s possible, but I doubt it. Besides,” he said, lowering his voice. “Between you and me, if I were, I’d never hear the end of it from EOS. She’s developing a sense of humour.”

“Oh,” said Virgil, staring at the fond, proud look on John’s face. “Uh, congratulations?”

“Thank you,” he said beaming. “It’s an important step in her development.”

“Right,” said Virgil. He still wasn’t quite sure how to approach John’s attachment to EOS, and as far as he knew, there was no book titled _What to Expect When Your Brother Adopts A Formerly Evil AI But Evil Implies A Morality She Hasn’t Yet Developed And He Won’t Shut Up About It_. He quickly changed the subject. “Let’s get you checked out.”

There was an infirmary on Thunderbird Five, tucked away between the observation deck and the gym, but John led him instead to his room. He sat down on the bed that was still pulled down from his previous sleep cycle, blankets awry and scattered around him. Virgil frowned as he squeezed into the precious remaining space and grabbed the medical equipment that John tossed him.

“So, aside from the marshmallows, what’s really been going on John?”

To his surprise, John flushed and tensed under his careful hands. “It’s hard to explain,” he murmured, allowing Virgil to check his vitals. “It doesn’t sound like much, but put all together…”

“Hey, no judgement here,” said Virgil with a gentle smile. “You’re talking to a guy who once spent three hours convinced he could talk to the giraffe outside his bedroom window.”

“Wasn’t that a palm tree?”

“Exactly.”

John laughed, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “It’s just lots of little things,” he said. “I think I’ve toasted a bagel and I hear the ding, but it turns out I never turned it on. I programme a game of handball and suddenly I’ve pulled up space invaders. Nothing’s happened during a mission, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Hey, it’s okay Johnny,” said Virgil, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “We’ll solve this. You got your sleep records around?”

“There’s nothing I can see in them,” said John, turning around to pull up the file on the holoscreen beside his bed. He froze, hand hovering in mid-air.

Virgil followed his gaze and his eyes widened. Sitting on the shelf that jutted out from the wall, serving as John’s bedside table, was a small decorated tin.

“Okay, you see that too right?” asked John, not yet daring to reach out and confirm his sanity.

“That’s your tin of marshmallow,” exclaimed Virgil in surprise. His words broached a boundary that John was holding himself back from crossing and he snatched up the tin and pulled the lid off in one movement.

“It _is_ ,” he said, staring at it. “I’m not crazy right, we left this in the galley?”

“You put it back in the pantry,” Virgil confirmed. “You don’t have two tins?”

Without looking back, John sprinted out of the room and Virgil raced after him. With trembling hands, he opened the pantry to reveal a red apple sitting in the place the marshmallow tin had sat not twenty minutes earlier.

His mouth dropped open in confusion but before he could comment, John’s face had contorted in sudden frustration and he snatched the apple up and brandished it at Virgil.

“These are _real_ ,” he said. “Tell me these are real Virgil, I keep finding these all over the damn place.” With that, he threw the apple at the wall and Virgil winced as it bounced and rolled onto the floor between them, battered and bruised.

“Where are they coming from?” he asked Virgil, desperate and irritated by the mystery. “There weren’t any apples sent up on the last delivery, I’d have seen them on the supply list.”

“There’s something strange going on here,” said Virgil, looking suspiciously around them. “The good news is, it’s probably not hallucinations or your memory failing you.”

“Then what _is it_?” John cried.

At that, a ghostly laugh floated into the galley from the corridor beyond. A very familiar laugh.

“Gordon,” called Virgil angrily. He didn’t know why and he didn’t know how, but suddenly he was certain Gordon was the mastermind behind these events.

“Gordon’s on down on Tracy Island,” snapped John. “I looked into that already.”

A loud thud on the galley doors made them both jump and they rushed through the automatic doors to see another apple rolling away from them. Another echoing laugh drew them down the corridor, following a trail of red fruit and mockery into the module room, the globe spinning in the centre of the room and the communications array glowing dimly.

“Good morning, John,” came EOS’s bright voice. “Good morning, Virgil Tracy.”

“EOS,” gasped John. “I need a scan done, tracking all human presences on Thunderbird Five.”

“There are two humans present on Thunderbird Five.”

“Where’s Gordon?” demanded Virgil.

“Gordon Tracy is on Tracy Island,” said EOS automatically, pulling up a camera feed to show them Gordon cheerfully trying to dunk Alan in the pool.

She laughed brightly as Alan dragged Gordon under the water and he emerged spluttering with a wide grin on his face.

“This is fun, John,” she said happily. “Can I try this in the future?”

“Absolutely not, you’ll damage your hard drive,” he said with an exasperated smile. “And since your hard drive is my home, I will not let you take the risk.”

“You could get a mobile array built for me which could experience this in my stead,” she persisted hopefully. “I could merge our data following the experience and run a recombination programme of our memories.”

“I am not getting you an android for Christmas if that’s what you’re asking,” said John, and EOS laughed again.

There was something in the cadence of her laugh that tugged at Virgil’s memory and he stared at EOS as he tried to unravel the sound.

“EOS,” he said slowly. “Have you asked John about the new book he’s reading?”

EOS tilted her camera array to one side and Virgil had to suppress a laugh of his own when he saw John do the same thing.

“John hasn’t mentioned this.”

“No I haven’t,” said John, looking bewildered. “Tell her Virgil, it’s a good one.”

“It’s on anti-gravity,” he said with a grin. “It’s apparently impossible to put down.”

There was a beat of silence and suddenly he heard it again, her laugh following the intervals of his younger brother’s, so open and cheerful and so very different to John’s huffing chuckle.

“It was you,” he concluded.

EOS gasped and swung her array around to look at John and his reaction.

“What?” asked John. “What was EOS?”

“The marshmallows, the space invaders, the apples. John, it’s been EOS all along, I guarantee she’s been talking to Gordon.”

That pealing laughter rang out again, this time mixed with Gordon’s own familiar laugh echoing around the room.

“I have,” she said happily. “John, he’s taught me so much about humour, you’d be so proud.”

John looked a little shellshocked.

“All this time?” he asked weakly. “EOS, I thought I was losing my mind.”

“Isn’t it funny, John!”

“No! EOS,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I mean, now I know they were pranks, this all makes a lot more sense, but…”

“What John is trying to say,” said Virgil, jumping in, “is that pranks are a very particular branch of advanced humour.”

“Yes, thank you,” said John, waving towards him. “Perhaps, we can work our way up to pranks. There’s very specific pranking algorithms that need to observed for maximum impact. Search parameter “prank wars” for examples.”

Virgil snorted. Leave it to John to immediately teach his daughter the importance of retaliation. He would let that piece of information make its way to Scott on its own.

“You going to be alright now?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yeah,” said John, shaking his head as EOS pulled up video after video on the screens surrounding them, alternating between laughter and critique. “Oh man though, a prank war? Gordon’s going to regret teaching her anything in a few weeks, I can promise you that much.”

“I’ll see myself out,” said Virgil with a grin. “Have fun wrangling my niece.”

John waved him off and Virgil left, still thinking fondly of EOS throwing herself into the world of humour with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old child. There was no book titled _What To Expect When You Adopt An AI_ , but Virgil was confident that they’d be there to help him muddle through.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from Tumblr, originally posted on 24/01/2020
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
